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Discarded Dodgers left field solution making All-Star team is a poetic eye roll

Emma Lingan
Emma Lingan

Dodgers Way

Los Angeles Dodgers v Cincinnati Reds / Dylan Buell/GettyImages

As the Los Angeles Dodgers crash and burn with their sixth straight loss and a never-ending list of injuries, one of their former players just added salt to their proverbial wounds.

Utility man Zach McKinstry, a former top Dodgers prospect who is now a member of the red hot Detroit Tigers, was named to the American League All-Star roster Wednesday as a replacement for injured Houston Astros infielder Jeremy Peña.

A 33rd-round pick by the Dodgers in the 2016 MLB Draft, McKinstry ranked as high as No. 15 on Los Angeles' top prospects list in 2021. He has generally failed to impress at the Major League level, however, posting a career batting average of .233 and OPS of .681 over parts of six seasons.

This season, however, McKinstry has been a machine. He is slashing .286/.358/.468 with seven home runs and 28 RBI in what has easily been the best offensive season of his career. He is a big part of the reason that the Tigers' are MLB's best team this season with 59 wins – three more than the second-best Dodgers.

The extra twist of the knife? With McKinstry's selection, the Tigers now tie the Dodgers for the most All-Star picks this season with five apiece. McKinstry joins Tigers teammates Tarik Skubal, Gleyber Torres, Riley Greene and Javier Báez, while the Dodgers will be represented by Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Clayton Kershaw.

Discarded Dodgers left field solution Zach McKinstry making All-Star team with Tigers is a poetic eye roll

As easy as it is to forget that veteran reliever Chris Martin was a Dodger for half a season in 2022, it's even easier to forget that McKinstry was the guy the Dodgers traded away to get him.

After 47 games with the Chicago Cubs, McKinstry got bounced again in 2023 – this time, to Detroit – where he has been ever since. It hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows for McKinstry, whose previous season-high batting average as a member of the Tigers was a meager .231 in 2023, but the Tigers' patience with him has paid off in spades.

In fairness, no one would have expected that McKinstry would turn into an All-Star. He was, up until this point, a consistently underperforming player who was drafted in a round that no longer exists. But watching him flourish to this extent after quickly writing him off just three years ago has to sting a little bit more for a Dodgers team that is currently in the midst of an injury-ridden spiral and, frankly, could use a player like McKinstry on their roster right about now.

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Emma Lingan

Emma Lingan

Emma Lingan is an MLB Staff Writer for FanSided primarily covering the Pittsburgh Pirates. She has been covering baseball for more than a decade dating back to her time as a student at Wake Forest University, and she has won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. National Team delegation (2016 Pan-American Championships & 2017 World Baseball Classic). A native of Washington, D.C. and current resident of Nashville, Tenn., she is also entering her seventh season as a credentialed NHL media member and currently covers the NHL’s Nashville Predators for The Hockey News. When she's not watching hockey, baseball or football, she enjoys podcasting, reading, going to the gym, consuming large amounts of coffee and taking long walks with her dog, Minkah. You can follow her @Emma_lingan on Twitter and Instagram.